


Oath Engraved in Bone

by TwelfthPeer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwelfthPeer/pseuds/TwelfthPeer
Summary: Summary: Just before Stannis sailed to assault Dragonstone, Ser Willem Darry, master-at-arms of the Red Keep, with four loyal men, Viserys, Daenerys, and a wet-nurse, slipped the enclosing noose of rebel ships and sailed for the Braavosian Coast.This is, by very nature of there being exactly one line in canon describing the escape from Dragonstone, and thus featuring Robert's Rebellion from the perspective of a Targaryen loyalist and then going to Essos, going to be extremely original character centric. However, my goal is to write believable characters, with motivations real enough that you can, perhaps, look at why they're still loyal to a dynasty headed by a man that burned one of his chief vassals to death and strangled said vassal's heir and go "hmmm." It will be in no way apologism for such barbarity, or Rhaegar's own loose interpretation of both homage and marriage vows.
Relationships: Aerys II Targaryen/Rhaella Targaryen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

I woke to hammering on the door of the inn I kept my room in, to avoid being seen at Court by Madking Aerys. My first thought was _His Grace is cleaning the house._ My hand dipped to the dagger on my sword belt and I drew steel. Then I tugged my boots on and padded to the door. I stood to one side, then undid the lock.  
  
The door swung inwards, and I waited with bated breath. Elbert Darke stepped into my rented room, bascinet tucked beneath his arm and the armband of pink dragon against black, sitting proud on his rerebrace loudly proclaiming his allegiance to the Queen.  
  
Darke dominated the doorway, nearly too wide at the shoulder to fit through it. Brown eyes under black hair met my own. Then he gave me a slow smile, and though it lent his face a cruel air, the tension that thrummed through me eased. Darke’s face was cruel-looking, true, harsh and twisted even when he smiled, but I knew the man beneath the face, and I would trust him with my sister.  
  
"Roland," he said. "Good, you're up. You need to dress, and then come with me fast. The King has ordered Her Grace the Queen to Dragonstone with Ser Willem, and the good Ser needs men true to fill out a retinue." He took in my disheveled appearance, the remnants of my night's meal, and the woman pulling her head beneath the pillow on the bed. He cocked an eyebrow, then grinned.  
  
"Be about it, you bastard. Her Grace means to sail with the tide at mid-morning and be rid of this pit."  
  
I nodded seriously, then sheathed the dagger and pulled my brown leather boots back off to accommodate my breeches of somber gray wool.  
  
"Did she or Ser Willam say who else will be accompanying Her Grace?" I asked around a heel of bread. Shirt next, and that tucked into the breeches and then I tied them off.  
  
"Yes," he said. "Sers Corlys Velaryon and Lyonel Staunton. His Grace the Prince Viserys will be coming with us, and our primary charge." I swallowed back my distaste at the thought of the King so much as touching the Queen, and nodded again.  
  
"You'll have sent my baggage onto the ship for me," I asked. Elbert nodded. I smiled, for I had left the Red Keep in the middle of the night with only one change of clothing in my knapsack. "Then we'll have time for me to find something to break my fast with." I pulled my doublet on next, then began doing the buttons as I took one last glance around the rented room. The woman had been paid off the night before, I was certain I'd left nothing incriminating me of greater loyalty to the Queen than her lord husband the King, and all that remained was my sword belt and armband. I slipped the band, like Elbert's own, onto my left arm, closest to my heart, and led the way out the room, securing my belt about my waist.  
  
The fashion in the capital then was that King's men would wear their sword belts high on the body, at the waist, the better to pull from a horse. Queen's men, like Darke, Staunton, Sunglass and I, wore them low on our hips, the better to fight on foot with. Three nights ago, Sunglass and I had cornered three King's men in an alley off the Street of Silk and left their bodies for the gold cloaks to find. I wasn't proud of killing three boys barely out of squiring, but they refused to apologise for the filthy things they had said about Queen Rhaella. Well, that and they drew steel first, but who was counting?  
  
I gave my thanks to the inn's keeper on our way out the door, and Elbert and I emerged into the pre-dawn false light with hands to our longswords.  
  
"A brisk morn," Elbert said.  
  
A man stepped out of the shadows to the side leading two horses. He attempted a low bow, and Elbert grinned to see him. The man wore Darke’s own livery, seven gold shields embroidered onto a black doublet. Over the man’s brown eyes, his gold-colored hair was tied neatly back with a pink ribbon. In light of the political difficulties in the capital, he wore a sword and dagger at his hip, but not the way that Elbert or I wore our own— easily and as though we’d been born to it.  
  
"But the winds from the north blow cold," the man replied. Sign and counter-sign given, Elbert took the reins of the horses and passed them to me. I greeted my own, a dark roan gelding with a fond whuff into his nose. Elbert and his man embraced for a long heartbeat, but then they broke apart.  
  
"Go home to Twoponds," Elbert said. "If the King is sending Her Grace away with the Prince, I assume someone whispering in his ear expects the worst. I'd not have you in this city for a sack, my friend."  
  
The man bowed low, and when his head came back up I saw tears. I looked away out of courtesy, but could still hear his words.  
  
"Thirty years I served the Darkes in King's Landing, Ser Elbert, first your father and then you. If I'm not here, who will look after your city residence?"  
  
I can only assume Elbert smiled sadly, for I recognized the tone. "I do not expect to be returning in the favor of the next man who holds this city, Jon, if you take my meaning. I shall meet a brave death defending Her Grace. Or I shall live out my years in exile in Essos, with the royal children and Her Grace. But I expect this might be the last we see of each other, old friend."  
  
"Things'll happen as the gods will or don't," Jon said. "But I'll come find you in Essos if I must, just to let your dear mother know how you're settling."  
  
I didn't hear whatever came next, for they spoke too low for me to do so. I suspect it was a whispered and heartfelt goodbye, and my heart ached that I could not bid my own mother and father goodbye. But then— I'd done so years ago, when I came to the city to be one of the Queen's household knights. Mother and father knew I'd acquit myself well, for they'd let me come. I did not think they would approve of the murdering of King's men in the dark of the night, but, well.... _You don't really approve of it either,_ a small part of me whispered.  
  
And it was true, I didn't. They had been barely not-boys, and the Father Above knew more barely adult men would find their deaths at the tip of my sword. It grieved me then, and it grieves me now. I remember I longed to be away from the capital, cesspit that it is, and home away to hunt the woods and pastures I'd spent my boyhood in. But the oaths of a knight wore heavy on my soul, and the oaths of a knight to a Queen were graver still.  
  
I had begged leave from Her Grace to join Rhaegar’s forces linking up with the ruins of Jon Connington’s army in the Crownlands and seeking to give battle to the rebel forces, but she had refused my request and ordered I stay in the capital. And so I raked the streets with my eyes, searching for King’s men looking to put two of the Queen’s staunchest supporters into our graves before our gods appointed three-score and ten years passed.  
  
I was self-aware enough, too, to understand that I had initially only been a Queen’s man by grace of having been squire to Ser Bonifer Hasty who had been in love with Her Grace once. He was leading a company of knights and men-at-arms in the Riverlands with Rhaegar’s army, turning his back on his liege lord Robert Baratheon. Hasty was loyal to Her Grace still, and now I was loyal to her of my own volition— half in love with her myself, I sometimes thought, and think still. But the love of a knight for the sister-wife of a Targaryen was a thing to be kept close to the heart, and mine was altogether more courtly in fashion. Her Grace had need of strong swords to defend her interests from those lickspittles of the King who would see her shut away in the Maidenvault to waste her years away, when once she had been the Light of the East and Cersei Lannister a mummer’s imitation.  
  
I handed Elbert the reins for his horse after he finished, a brindle with stripes of chestnut and gray. We swung into our saddles, and he leaned down to his man’s ear. I gave Jon my own thanks after they finished speaking. King’s Landing was almost pretty, in the pre-dawn dark, when I could ignore the flood of refugees running from the King’s army and the rebel army in the Riverlands and seeking to move into the Crownlands. Red brick buildings for the guildhalls and wealthy trades and craftsmen, half-brick and half-timber buildings for the craftsmen, and ramshackle tenements for the poor masses.  
  
But outside the buildings teemed the refugees. Poor, sickly, fleeing the war and armies. I frowned at the thought of the rebel army likely headed here as their primary objective. A siege would be... ruinous.  
  
“Your squire,” I began. I had no squire of my own, despite being a knight for nearly three years now. I’d never found the opportunity, and wasn’t sure if I wanted that responsibility. Moreover, I was neither wealthy or high standing enough to have lordly boys clamoring to squire for me.  
  
“What about him?” Elbert said. I frowned in concentration, trying to resume the track of my thoughts.  
  
“Ah,” I said once I’d found it. “Are we taking the squires, the rest of the lances to Dragonstone?” Elbert shook his head.  
  
“No,” he said. “Ser Darry has commanded we leave our retainers here. No squires, no archers, no men-at-arms, no pages. We’re to pay the remainder of their wages and discharge them to seek service elsewhere.” He left it at that, perhaps unwilling to say more. I, unwilling to question him in the midst of the streets of King’s Landing, let him leave it at that. Instead I nodded. We carried on in silence for a while, and soon enough came to the gates of the Red Keep.


	2. II

**Two**  
  
We came to the gates of the Red Keep towering against the sky just after dawn, near the middle of the Prime hour. I had been remiss in my prayers, and owed each of the Seven several, and quite a few for the Seven-as-One. I felt bad for my lack of prayer in such a trying time for my lady the Queen, but a sneer from one of the Royal man-at-arms huddled near a fire instead of up and alert angered me. He spat into the fire when he saw Elbert and I.  
  
I went to snarl at him, but a hand on my arm from Elbert stopped me. “Peace, Roland,” he said. “We mustn’t give cause for offense on this day.” I kept my snarls to myself, settling instead for a nod to Elbert and a sneer at the dozy man-at-arms instead. Elbert secured our entrance in the Red Keep after a discussion with the sergeant-of-the-watch. The sergeant took our horses and led us through the wicket gate after we dismounted. He took our horses to the stable, to be curried and watered before we escorted Her Grace to the ship that would carry her, and us, to Dragonstone. I went to be armored.  
  
This hour of the morning, the only people moving about were the help, and in a branching hallway off the main one of the Red Keep, I stopped a manservant bearing a covered platter of what I assumed was some noble’s breakfast.   
  
“Sele of the day to you, good man. Got anything extra on there?” I said. The man shook his head, and I frowned. I hadn’t broken my fast yet, and typically I’d have already been working at a pell for an hour or so and then eating by now. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to skip breaking my evening fast. “If you could point me in the direction of Corlys Velaryon’s room, I’d be obliged.”  
  
He did so, and after he’d told me I pressed a silver stag into one of his hands. “Sorry, milord,” he said. “I’d bow, but—” he held up the platter of food and I smiled. Largesse was one of the chief knightly virtues, and I tried to be a good knight. Mostly. Some of the oaths I’d sworn weighed more on my conscience than one other.   
  
“No matter,” I said. “My thanks. Be about your work, man.” We parted, and I passed through halls and then up two sets of spiral stairs meant to stymie attackers. Arrowslits allowed in small amounts of the dawning light, but the majority was provided by torches and candles set into sconces. I didn’t envy the Targaryens their candle bill. Eventually I came to the door specified to me, knocked, and awaited the muffled “enter.”   
  
A bed with a chest at the foot of it dominated most of it, but there was a window below which was set a desk for reading or writing, and an armoire against the wall next to the door.   
Corlys Velaryon and Lyonel Staunton were waiting for me and Corlys’ room is where he had hidden my panoply for me before I could be killed in the night by one of the partisans of the King.   
  
  
Corlys stood leaning against the desk, arms crossed over his chest, wearing a doublet in the sea green of his family's sigil and somber breeches of dark blue. He smiled to see me, more a grin, really, and stood properly to embrace me. We butted foreheads together gently, his silver-gold hair contrasting neatly with my own black, and the delight in his blue eyes was heart-warming.  
  
"We expected you dead, when we'd heard nothing from you the third night after you left the Keep," Staunton said. Corlys and I broke our embrace, and then Staunton enfolded me in a hug. When we broke apart, we exchanged kisses on the cheeks in the Essosi fashion. He had spent three years with his mother's folk there, but we loved him anyway. I took in his appearance from an arm's length. Lyonel had shaved his ruddy red beard down to a neat mustache and goatee, the better to hide his puny chin, but his own green eyes were still clever and missed nothing, beneath his ruddy red-brown hair.  
  
"Much to your delight, I'm sure," I said dryly. I grinned then, to show I'd meant no offense. "Well, now to your disappointment, here I am."   
  
"Here you are," Corlys said. "Warrior and Stranger, but it's been tense without you here to help defend the Queen's cause."  
  
I nodded seriously, and as Lyonel opened the chest at the foot of the bed, I undid my sword belt and then sat. While I started tugging off my boots, Corlys went on.  
  
"His Grace takes no offense that we champion his lady wife, of course. But... Neither does he commend us for duelling the curs that impugn her honor or imply Rhaegar isn't truly his son."  
  
"What?" I exclaimed. "Aerys allows open doubt about the paternity of his heir—"  
  
Lyonel shook his head. Stripped to my shirt and hose, he frowned. From the chest he pulled my good arming doublet, the one kept washed and lovingly maintained by the ladies in service to the Queen.   
  
"There is talk, and that is _all_ it is, so far, is that Aerys means to pass over Rhaegar and the Prince Aegon both in favor of Viserys as heir," Lyonel explained. Corlys helped me tug the arming doublet on, then settled back onto the desk while I tugged the wool braes, to go beneath my leg armor, on.   
  
"Serious talk, if my father is to be believed." Corlys said. I wanted to blaspheme, but refrained. Instead I nodded, deadly serious.   
  
"Then perhaps we will be defending the future King of the Seven Kingdoms, too," I said. "The gods will armor and shield us only if our faith in them and each other is unbreakable."   
  
"The war is going badly," Staunton said. "My cousin is married to a knight of the Riverlands marching with Hoster Tully, and she wrote to me to say they'd had word that the rebels expect to force a crossing of the Trident."   
  
"Rhaegar has the scrapings of thirty thousand Crownlanders, loyalists from the Storm and Riverlands, and another ten thousand Dornishmen under command of his good-uncle," Corlys said. "My family's strength remains at sea, attempting to help pin down the Ironmen reaving the Reach. Word is the rebels are fifty or even fifty five thousand."  
  
"Gods be good," I whispered. If even a fourth of that was knights and men-at-arms, there was a very good chance that even defending a crossing, ford or bridge, of the Trident, battle would see the only force between the rebel army and the capital annihilated. And after defeat on the field, all of the Crownlands would lay open to being scorched and burnt in the rebels' drive to the city. My home included.   
  
I wanted to say more, make a great oath of righteous anger and vengeance, but I held my tongue. Making an oath only to see it broken by circumstance outside my control, or the will of the gods, would make me an oathbreaker, for all that it would not have been my fault. That would be folly, and so I held my tongue. It mattered not, anyway.  
  
Elbert entered the room without knocking, shifting my thoughts away from oath-taking. He grinned to see me.  
  
The grin lent him a devilish air, and he clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ve had word from that girl in the kitchens that my squire likes, you know the one, Roland. Her Grace is breaking her fast early, because of the travel, and will be allowing us to dine with her in her solar.” I would remain unarmored, then, for all I’d come here to dress in steel.   
  
Instead I turned to Corlys. “I’m sorry to impose upon you, but my baggage is in with Elbert’s. May I borrow—?”  
  
“Of course, of course,” he said. “You know I don’t wear your pink and black, but I think I’ve a suitable doublet and breeches.” He turned to the armoire, threw it open, and began poking and prodding.   
  
“Your boots are fine, of course,” he said. “But you’ll need two pairs of gloves, of course, one to go through your sword belt and the other to wear—” I turned to look out the window as Lyonel and Elbert began talking about the finer points of our itinerary after Her Grace had broken her fast, running a thumb along the edge of the red stonework. Some enterprising stonemason, on finishing the room, had carved in intricate detail, little wyverns. Delighted to have discovered such a marvel, I smiled, grim talk of the war momentarily forgotten.  
  
A tap on my shoulder returned me to the room and my friends, and laid out on the bed were the promised two pairs of gloves, both of fine and supple lightly colored fawnskin. A solid dark blue, nearly black, cotton doublet with knotwork embroidery, and wool breeches of hunter green meant I’d be dressing in nearly Velaryon colors, but not quite. Enough to declare friendship of houses, I guessed, but not something so blatant as to declare, falsely, that Corlys and I were _together_ in the fashion of man and woman.   
  
“Well done,” I told my friend. “Can I assume—?”  
  
“Of course,” Corlys said. “You helped me thrash that bastard bully of a Waters when we were squires, and next to that this is nothing at all.”   
  
“My thanks,” I said. Corlys knew I’d return the favor at some point— Ser Hasty had had to take a rod to my arse more times than I cared to remember because of how often I fought with the other squires for trying to bully Corlys. He’d taken his revenge, though, once he had finally gotten his manhood’s height and strength to him, and the other squires had learned fast not to try the petty tricks that could make another's life miserable.   
  
I dressed, fast, because if the Queen was already sitting down to dine I didn’t want to be the cause of her delay, and once I had pulled my sword belt tight, tucked one pair of gloves through it, and pulled the other pair onto my hands, I made sure my sword was loose in its sheath. Only the gods knew what work I’d be called upon to do today, and I wanted to be ready.   
  
I didn't _expect_ to be ambushed at breakfast with Her Grace, but the walls here had eyes, ears, and one could never know when they had knives. Knives or not, though, there was food to be had and the Queen set a fair table. Cheered by the prospect of a meal, I spread my arms out, presenting myself to my friends’ approval.  
  
“Quit preening,” Lyonel said. I made as if to slug him in the gut, but he backed away, shaking a finger at me.   
  
Lyonel caught my arm, then, and face serious, grimaced. “Oh no,” Lyonel said. “I don’t think so, friend. You need to be warned. His Grace... burned his Hand, Lord Chelsted, alive last night.” My hand went to the hilt of my longsword, and I felt the anger in me. I had no need to be informed of what had happened afterwards. The King’s habits were the subject of much gossip in the Keep, but Elbert’s leman, a maid of the Queen, had confirmed the worst to be true.   
  
  
His Grace took his lordly rights, ‘twas true. The Seven-Pointed Star teaches that that cannot be _rape_ , for a wife must submit to her husband. I have always disagreed with the Faith and _Seven-Pointed Star_ on that topic. But the Star also teaches that a knight cannot stand idly by while a woman is harmed. Were it up to me, I know well which of the commandments I would go to the hells for breaking. Murdering a King would not have been difficult, after an actual battle. I even knew how I would do it, too: Aerys would have only one Kingsguard present during the early morning hours, and I could take Dayne himself if he did not expect me. From there the King would be child’s play.  
  
I wondered, then, as we left Corlys’ room and headed for Her Grace’s solar if the knight I had squired for would have been willing to do the same. I knew I wanted to, everytime I had stood in court and seen the _man_ dribbling out his mouth and twitching on that heap of burned swords. Only fear of what would happen to Her Grace and her young son stilled my hand each time.   
  
When at last we came to the solar door of Her Grace, Ser Willem Darry stood outside. His tabard of Darry colors and sigil, their livery, masked his coat-of-plates that nestled over his hauberk, but he wore good plate on his shoulders and arms, the better to use all of him as a weapon. The older man was nearing his mid-thirties, by my guess, and was one of the few non-Kingsguard trusted with protecting the Queen even in the Red Keep. His cool gray eyes— killer’s eyes, I knew— passed over all of us, swords and daggers and armbands proclaiming our loyalty to Rhaella, and he nodded.   
  
“She told me you’d be coming. She’s inside, already waiting for you lads.” He tilted his chin up, not a sneer, but something else. “If she seems ill at ease, well... Be gentle in there. Afterwards, muster and meet me at the doors to Keep in armor halfway betwixt terce and sext, and with polearms, too.” We murmured our assent, and he knocked once. The knock was sharp and loud, and the “enter” that returned was assuredly Her Grace’s voice.   
  
Darry opened the door to let us through, and my friends filed in before me. Once we had all entered, Ser Willem closed the door behind us. Already seated was Her Grace the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Queen of the Andals, Rhoynar, and Firstmen, Rhaella Targaryen. Standing behind the chair to the Queen’s left was Princess Elia Martell, and to the Queen’s right was Prince Viserys. Elia’s children were there, as well, and Rhaenys stood on her seat. I smiled at her, and she smiled shyly back. My friends and I knelt, and Elia came around the table.  
  
“Stand, please,” she said. “Goodmother and I would not have such loyal defenders kneeling when there’s a meal to be had.” Elia was beautiful in a slim golden dress, and only a few years older than I. Her black eyes were clever and full of warmth, and she allowed each of us to perfunctorily kiss her hand. She returned to settle Rhaenys and help with Viserys, and Rhaella took charge.  
  
“Thank you for coming,” Her Grace said. The scratches on her face and neck hadn’t been hidden by powder or scarf or veil, and the redness of them angered me. The Queen’s eyes were a deep indigo, almost darker than the wine-dark sea, and her hair, like woven light from the dawning sun was worn in an elaborate braid supporting the crown of rose-gold and diamonds.   
  
“Viserys,” she said. “Say hello to the knights, please.” The tone was firm, though her voice was far from the usual projection of inner strength I knew it capable of being, she still _commanded._ The Prince ducked his head shyly, but one of the Queen’s slim fingers rising from where her hands had been in her lap saw him do as bid.  
  
“Hello, Ser Knights,” the Prince said.   
  
“Sele of the day to you, my Prince,” I said. My friends echoed me, and I inclined my head to him. If his brother fell against the rebels and he became Crown Prince, then he would have a way to go to be a good king. Not far at all to be better than Aerys or Rhaegar, though.. Viserys matched the Queen’s clothing: the Queen wore a dress of black with red stitching and embroidery, with pink dragons on the shoulders, while Viserys wore a doublet and breeches of red and black.   
  
Rhaella had not stood to greet us or accept our obeisance. I could recall each instance that had happened as clear as day, and it only ever occurred the day after His Grace _took_ his lordly dues as her husband. She did not stand because she _could not._ Murder writ its way through my veins and heart, and if I ever was given the chance by the gods—   
  
“What’s a night, mother?” Rhaenys asked. Her eyes were curious, and she didn’t stop smiling. I breathed out, once. Anger was a sin, yes, and one I knew well. It had served me well on the battlefield, but _this_ was not a battlefield. I breathed in again, and on the exhale tried to expel all my anger and fury through my nose.   
  
“Knight, dear heart,” Elia said to her. “There is a silent letter at the front of the word that makes it different from _night_. You’ll learn that in lessons with the Maester, soon. Knights protect us and guard us.”   
  
I placed my own hands in my lap, clasped as though I were at prayer, and surveyed the table. The Queen set a fine one, I had to admit. She had only a light bowl of porridge with honey and butter in front of her, with a small plate of iced melons. There was a platter of bacon, cooked like she knew Corlys and I liked: crispy, as well as sausages. There were loaves of warm bread, with crocks of butter, bowls of berries and cream, honey-and-wheat cakes with almonds and walnuts baked into them. There were two carafes of wine, and then four big pitchers of small-beer and the mugs to pour them into. Corlys and Lyonel and Elbert began helping themselves, but I waited.  
  
I wanted to say something, to let the Queen know she had but to tilt her head and I would lay the King’s own head at her feet, and be damned to the consequences for myself. She looked at me, then, Her Grace, a decade and a half older than I, and she gave me a slight smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Eat, Ser Roland,” she said. I nodded once, and saw Rhaenys watching me.   
  
I wondered what the young girl saw that made her stare at me with eyes so warm.   
  
“Ser Elbert,” Elia said. He paused with a slice of bread covered with honey and butter halfway into his mouth. “Her Grace’s impending leaving for Dragonstone... It would do Rhaenys well to see her father’s seat early, I think, and Ser Darry has agreed, but asked that I speak with you all as well. If I give my daughter into your care, gentle sers, may I be assured that she will be as safe with you as if she were in the heart of Sunspear?”  
  
As safe with us as if she were in the heart of Sunspear. Elia had chosen her words carefully, and I caught their hidden meaning. _The King does not like his Dornish looking granddaughter, and without the moderating influence of both Prince Rhaegar and Queen Rhaella..._ Elbert looked lost, and I elbowed him in the gut, hard.  
  
“Your Grace,” I said while he tried not to choke on his bread. “The Princess Rhaenys will be protected with our lives, if needs must. I am no great noble or lord, but I am a _knight._ I know what oaths I spoke, in that sept after my vigil, and I know what oaths I will die or burn in the seven hells themselves to keep.” And I meant it. Accursed and damned were oathbreakers, but one of those oaths I’d made had been to protect the innocent, and another women and children.   
  
I was a knight, yes. Knights were soldiers, and soldiers were _killers._ A heavy topic for breakfast, I thought, but then I tried never to lie to others or myself.   
  
“Your candor is appreciated, Ser Roland,” Rhaella said. “It will please me to be on the island of my forefathers with my son and granddaughter with us. Perhaps Viserys can begin learning the duties of a page once we arrive at the island. Would you like that, Viserys?” The boy nodded, but the face gave lie to his earnestness, in that he didn’t appear eager at all.   
  
“Your Grace,” Corlys said. “The ship my father placed into my command remains, of course, at _your_ command, if you wish it.”  
  
Rhaella nodded. “It pleases me, but it shall provide escort to the ship we take.” She raised a hand and gestured with it, likely meaning to cut off whatever delicate conversation Corlys was meaning to start, and so we set to the grim business of eating in the presence of a woman that’d been brutally raped the night before. There were no words of comfort I could offer that would ease her pain, that wouldn’t see my head taken for being a traitor.  
  
So instead I watched the Queen eat. She took three bites of porridge, one bite of melon. I counted. Then she drank heavily of her wine, and as there were no servants in the solar with us, allowed me to pour for her. Lyonel, Corlys, and Elbert all ate heavily— they believed that if there was a fight to be had, they needed full bellies for the strength. I preferred to eat lightly myself, if at all, so that there’d be less I vomited up afterwards. Even over breakfast, all of us were expecting and bracing ourselves for a fight.  
  
 _Who with?_ Was my question, but it could not be asked, and so I watched the Queen and the Queen watched my friends and her son eat. The solar was, in contrast to the Targaryen clothing worn by the royals, decorated in soft shades of green and brown, perhaps meant to be soothing. I wondered where the King’s spymaster had his rats watching us from.   
  
When, at last, most everyone had had their fill and after Rhaenys’ cat Balerion the Black Dread had made an attempt at some of the cream on the table, Rhaella called the servants in to clear the remnants of breakfast away.   
  
“Gentle sers,” Elia said, standing. “Goodmother Rhaella and I thank you for coming, and I will be grieved to see such noble knights depart the city. It will be a poorer place without all of you,” she said.   
  
I hoped, as we made our goodbyes and departed to arm ourselves for later, that Elia would be well in the Keep without Rhaenys or Rhaella. I did not have a lot of time between now and when we’d depart for the ship, but if I hurried...  
  
“Corlys, Lyonel, Elbert,” I started. “If we hurry, we can...” and I laid out my thoughts.


	3. III

**Three**

Business seen to, we helped each other arm in the privacy of Velaryon’s room. Stripped down to shirts, braies, and chausses, we carefully put away the fine clothing we’d attended the Queen, and put on our finest arming pourpoints. Corlys’ was a fine fustian of sea-green. He was armed first, and we started with his sabatons. From there went greaves and cuisses, lacing to the pourpoint.

“Will my lord have the haubergeon?” Elbert asked, and Lyonel laughed. Elbert received a poke at the eye for his trouble, but Corlys nodded. We helped him pull it over his head, and then thread the laces for his breast and then the arm harness through the mail. At last came the breastplate, steel inlaid with green paint. From toes to crown, we tied the leather thongs that would secure Corlys' second skin of metal. I tightened the straps connecting his arms to his breast, until he elbowed me with his metal-clad arm.

"Gods above," he swore. "You don't need to tie me up, you prick." I gave the strap I was working on one final tug to get my point across, and then smiled as he took a few steps around the room to ensure fit and mobility.

"Going to have to lose a few pounds," he complained. "Tighter in the arse and thighs today than it was last sennight."

"Quit shoving your face with the Queen's food and you wouldn't have to get yourself back into fighting fit, Ser Piglet," Elbert told him. I agreed with the sentiment, and elbowed Lyonel.

"Or do the horizontal dance with your leman more often," I suggested slyly. Lyonel blushed from beside me, and then it was his turn to be armored. Armoring someone I loved well as a brother was a labor of love. And how could I not love these men that I had first met as a young page in the Red Keep as boys? When we had ridden together in the squires’ tourney at Harrenhal, and then again under command of Elbert’s father at Stoney Sept?

Lyonel and Elbert were the better riders of the four of us, and put three men each into their graves from horseback in the swirling melee that had been the fighting in that city's streets. I tried not to dwell on that fight. At last fastened Lyonel's gorget around his throat.

His armor was plain steel, but his tabard was a fine thing of silk and checkered like his family's sigil, while Elbert’s own was painted a light gray— an attempt to distance himself from reminding the King or the King’s supporters that the Darkes were a cadet house of _Darklyn._ Wise, in our opinions. And then, at last, it was my turn.

I swallowed when I looked upon my panoply once it had been laid out on the ground. Good plate, forged here in King's Landing once I had reached the final growth of my adulthood, it was painted dark gray. Three lances in blackened steel adorned the breastplate, one penetrating a heart painted in red. I ran a finger along that center lance, and looked at my friends. I was to be the darkest knight of our group, for Corlys’ plate harness was painted sea-green and blue, Darke’s was painted in red-and-gold, and Lyonel's unpainted.

As my friends took the pieces of my harness out and began armoring me, one piece at a time, from the toes up, I recited the oaths of a knight silently to myself, both comforting ritual and prayer to the gods.

_I, Roland of House Gaunt, swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves. I swear to protect all women and children. I swear to obey my captains and my liege lady. I swear to fight bravely, and to do such tasks are needed as laid upon me, no matter how hard or humble or dangerous._

When we had finished, I stood in that dark gray plate, plaque belt buckled around my waist, sword and dagger hanging, black horsehair-crested, visored barbute held underneath an arm. My spurs jangled as I turned, and I smiled at my friends. They stood before me, armored and armed, I felt ashamed of myself in their company, these three knights, my brothers-in-arms.

“Let us attend our Queen,” Elbert said. We left Corlys’ room, likely for the last time, and clanked our way down through the halls of the Keep. Servants ducked to the side, away from us. King’s men glared at us, no doubt wishing they had a dagger or two to put into our backs, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in response to the knowledge that I was being watched with hostile intent. _No matter,_ I thought. The harness of steel I wore would protect me, as surely as my faith in the Seven would as well, at least long enough to let me put the man down.

We emerged into the brightness of the mid-morning sun, light shining off the lanceheads of the Royal contingent of men-at-arms, already horsed. My friends’ squires, as part of their last duties, had saddled our destriers for us. They waited next to the Queen’s carriage, and as she emerged from the bulk of the Red Keep, every one not horsed went to their knees, us included.

Doing a vigil on my knees in armor was hell on them. But then, wasn't that the point? Suffering, in harness, as penance for my sins? And oh, how there were a multitude. I was not an adulterer as Elbert was, but I'd fornicated and blasphemed and killed in cold blood and not even in defense of my life. Those were my thoughts as Rhaella emerged into the morning sun, the scars of her woman's battlefield worn as proudly as my father wore his own taken in service of Aerys during the War of Ninepenny Kings.

The Queen had changed to a riding skirt of sensible and plain brown, but her own doublet and short cote were red and black, her family's colors. Unhappy as her marriage was, unpleasant as her husband was as both a man and liege, Rhaella walked the short steps from the Keep's entrance gate to the carriage waiting for her as though _she_ commanded the destiny of the Realms of Westeros.

How could I not love her? The willpower it must have taken to walk that distance without flinching, holding the hands of Viserys and Rhaenys— I marvel at it still. She saw me, then, in my gray armor, helmet held under my arm, and nodded once. I stood, and my friends followed suit. We swung ourselves into the saddles of our destriers, the big, expensive warhorses that could carry a charge home into the face of the fiercest enemy.

My warhorse was a mean son of a bitch of pale gray color, and mane and tail of brown hair. His mane was cut as short as it could go, the better to keep an enemy from gripping it. He wore barding of mail on the chest, neck, and a spike of steel on the head, and in a loop of leather off his saddle there hung my longsword, forty inches of thin steel meant to thrust its way into another knight's soft bits. If we were to have a fight in the streets of King's Landing, no matter who against, I wanted my horse to be as mean and furious as myself.

The older squires that could not afford to be made knights even if they were capable of it handed us our lances. Pennons of the Targaryen banner in the Queen's colors flapping in the sea breeze off the coast sat beneath the points, cruelly sharp steel, and I knew we made a fine sight. Until it came time to earn our wages, and then the killing work would be done.

The Queen safely secured in the wheelhouse with son and granddaughter, Ser Darry gave a click of his tongue and we set off, Darry, Corlys, and Elbert riding ahead of the carriage with a command of ten men-at-arms, myself and Lyonel in the very trailing position, behind the carriage and ten more royal men-at-arms. I did not look behind me as we departed the Red Keep. The iron clad hooves of the warhorses rang against the cobblestones of the streets, and as we passed through the city Aegon had built, people cheered for their Queen.

I thought that perhaps we would be clear through to ship, halfway down the Hook and to the Harbor. A crossbow bolt through the side of a man-at-arms' neck disabused me of that notion, and I jerked my horse's head to face the threat.

"Get the carriage and Darry's half of the men moving, Lyonel! Half you men, with me!" I spurred my destrier savagely, kicking him forward, and he crashed straight through the stall of a fishmonger. I found the crossbowman that had killed the soldier, and didn't bother to lance him. My warhorse's spike took him trying to flee, and the sound of horses ahead of me drew my attention further down the alley.

They stood there ahorse, seven men in good harnesses of plain, undecorated steel, with barding on their horses finer than mine. I smiled, and gave my horse the spurs. I had no shield, for the Seven-that-are-One were my shield and my armor. I dropped my lance into my armpit and couched it.

"Yah! Yah!" He drove forward, my stallion, and in the heartbeat I had before the first enemy got his lance into me, I knew I had him. I let the tip of my lance droop, as though I were a novice, and in the half heartbeat my enemy thought he had me he didn't bother to watch my lance tip. I brought it up smoothly, parried his would-be killing blow, deflected it away. Mine went through his heart and out his back.

He died then, trying to— what? Kill Rhaella and Viserys and Rhaenys? I wasn't even a great jouster, merely passable, but his horse took off with my lance still in him, and so then I went to work I excelled at: swords.

I was still smiling as I drew the sword from the sheath at my hip, caught the first thrust by one of the enemies in my steel-clad free hand, and put the tip of my sword through one of his eyeslits. I was a knight, gods forgive me, and I relished in the killing I did for my lady. I still do.

Because I was, am, good at it. Because if standing vigil in harness is penance for my sins, then fighting in harness is like being shriven with no septon there to hear the venial and petty sins I committed on a daily basis, like blasphemy or lusting after the Queen's maids.

The second man died in as many heartbeats, and we were two strokes and counter-strokes into the fighting. I had friends on the way. I didn't know if the enemy did. I tilted my head to the side, and the man's blow meant for my eyeslits skidded off the side of my helm. The sound was like nothing else I'd ever heard. Where the citizens of Stoney Sept had been terrified and fled, the good burghers of King's Landing clearly thought the gods had delivered a show for them, and I heard wagers being taken even as one old crone shouted a warning.

"On your right!" She shrieked, and I rotated my sword arm up to catch most of the blow. It deflected the sword to behind me, and I left him there to try to resume his neutral stance. I made a pass with my sword to cover my head from an overhead axe-blow that would have killed me, and the crone cackled.

"Put 'em down, ser knight! Kill 'em dead!'

"Bugger off," one of my foes bellowed. They crowded my horse now, trying to drive me back into the street where they could surround me and kill me as easily as a naked man pisses. But the men-at-arms I'd detailed to follow me lent their weight to our fight by thrusting past me with their lances, and they helped me kill one man by unhorsing him and letting my destrier trample him to death underfoot.

With three of them dead and the royal men-at-arms backing me now, the last four of the foe tried to yield, perhaps hoping to be ransomed.

"Throw down your arms, gentles, and by the love of the Mother your surrender will be accepted," I said. It was a bad thing, what I did next. But I judged it necessary, and I know the gods will judge me for it. They dropped their swords.

I put mine through an eyeslit and ordered the rest of their deaths. The men-at-arms obeyed. We could have taken one or three for questioning, I suppose, but when it takes three deaths to force the other four to surrender, a man's loyalty wasn't the only thing that had been bought. Their silence had been bought, too, and torture would only make them give us what they thought we wanted to hear.

"Leave them for the good citizens," I said, and cleaned my sword on a hankerchief handed to me by one of the men that had watched us fight.

"That was well done, milord," the man simpered.

I ignored him and backed my horse out the alley, a dismal place made wretched by murder.

"Let's go," I said. We spurred our horses on, and I feared the worst. Was that a side show, meant to divide our forces and leave the Queen, her son, and granddaughter vulnerable? I knew what some men did to helpless children, and a quick murder would be a mercy.

But even as I feared the worst, prayed for the best, and tried to settle my breathing in anticipation of another fight, we could not gallop our horses. For one, the destriers would have been too slow even at a gallop. The deadliness of a charge of knights and men-at-arms came from the assembled weight of horse and men, not the speed of the destriers. For another, the city was too crammed, too tight to spur my horse bloody and so catch up to the Queen's carriage.

So we settled into a slow trot, with the brick and timber buildings of the city crowing over the road. And I seethed at the delay.


	4. IV

**Four**

I bitterly resented every delay on our way to the port; each self-important carter, every aggravating stallholder. One of the men-at-arms bellowed for them to clear the way. He went largely ignored, and then he and his companions began laying about with their sheathed swords and distributing bruises for our way to finally, gradually, clear.

We could still only trot, though. It was necessary in order to save our horses for a charge in case the rest of our party were engaged. As we forced our way through the throngs of smallfolk, fishmongers, street-walking whores, and sailors, we came to the Mud Gate.Through the open gate I could hear the clamor of a crowd. I could also hear fighting.

"Come on," I yelled. "Yah!" I gave my destrier the spurs, hard, and he went forward willingly, eager to hit his full stride. The crowd parted as the warhorse worked his way up to a gallop, and the fighting came into sight. More foes in undecorated armor and without livery, and my friends fought for their lives and the Queen's.

The Harbor stretched out ahead of me. I saw the wharf the Queen's carriage was making for. Four men rode in pursuit, gaining on it, while the rest of them fought my friends. I drew my longsword, the killing sword, all forty inches of cold steel, and gave the warhorse his head.

I slammed into the rear of the melee and killed one man by using my arming sword's guard as a pick, driving it through the back of his helmet. I left it there and drew the longsword from its scabbard on my horse. I stood in my stirrups. Then threw myself into the side of a knight turning to face me. I knew he was a knight by his plaque belt and gilded spurs, but he died badly.

He died badly and not bravely, begging for his life as I landed atop him and then we wrestled. I managed to stand, and one hand held halfway up the length of my sword, drove it through his open visor. He jerked under me, his death throes, and I stood.

"Good to see you, Roland!" Lyonel called. He and Corlys were back to back, both with sword and shield. Elbert fought three men at once, poleaxe keeping them at a distance, and Ser Darry had placed himself on the gangplank, blocking the way to the war galley as the Queen walked sedately up it, shepherding the children up to the ship.

 _Ignore your liege lady,_ I told myself. _You have a knight’s work to do._ And I did. The war galley was long and lean, with two masts and several Targaryen pennons fluttering in the breeze coming off the Blackwater Bay. A smaller flag draped off a staff coming off the rear of the ship again in the Targaryen colors, and I must now confess to you that ships have never been my strong suit. I learned, of course— eventually.

The bay glittered in the sun, bright and shining. It was, in fact, a clear, beautiful morning. The kind of spring morning that I’d have spent a-horse on my father’s lands, collecting rents, helping repair thatched roofs in need of it, chopping firewood for the widows and old mothers on our lands. I have always enjoyed the quieter aspects of holding land. You wonder why. Why should you not? Knights are men of blood, men of arms. Even if we dressed ourselves in armor, claimed we were better than the smallfolk, burned their homes in our wars, stole their crops, killed them, the truth is...

We weren’t. I have stood, with men of no birth of note, men not born to arms, trained from boyhood to arms, men not expected to die as a man of arms, and all of them were as courageous in the fighting as the knights. Birth matters only in that some of us are born with more obligations than others, and my birth meant that my obligation was to _fight_.

Born and trained to it, like a destrier.

So I fought: for my brothers-in-arms and my Queen, and my Queen’s son and granddaughter who could not fight. One man turned from each fight, Corlys and Lyonel back-to-back, and Elbert. They split, one moving to my left and the other my right. Both moved only a pace or two. Without a prearranged signal, and wordlessly, they swept in at me.

I stepped back, and let their thrusts slide harmlessly into the air. They tangled swords, and I smiled inside my helm. I stepped forward, caught the wild swordswing from the foe on the right, and brought my blade up to deflect. His sword went off the line of attack, off to my right, and I thrust. I caught him under the armpit, straight into the heart. Blood bubbled from the air-holes in his helm, and he went to his knees.

His friend came at me with the speed of a striking snake, but I was faster. I brought my dagger up, just enough to catch the blade. They bonded, longsword and dagger. My foe tried to overpower me with his greater leverage.

I smiled still. I worked my left arm in a wide circle, let him think he had me with it, and dropped my dagger. I brought my hand up, gripped my longsword halfway up the blade, and drove the guard like a pick through his helm’s wrought face. He staggered backwards, and with the leisure of a man that lingered over a meal at an inn, I killed him like I had killed his fellow just a few heartbeats ago. Longsword fighting at close range was all about leverage, and gripping my sword halfway up the blade gave me all the leverage in the world, to thrust or cave in helmets using the guard as a pick.

Elbert caved his last foe’s head in with the pick part of his poleaxe, and we swept like a rising tide into the men fighting Corlys and Lyonel. My friends went first up the gangplank, and I covered them as the royal men-at-arms pulled away to return to the Red Keep. Their mission had been to see the Queen onto the ship. That was done— why should they stay? I won’t say they were the worst sort of soldiers, but I was not inclined charitably to them at any cost.

Two men opposed me, as I shuffled my way backwards up the gangplank. I could not see behind me, could barely see in front of me, and could barely hear. One of my foes had a poleaxe, and was standing behind his compatriot with a sword. They made a play for my face with the spear-point of the poleaxe, in concert with the sword going low. I gambled, and parried the poleaxe thrust.

I heard a yell.

“Duck!”

I ducked. Overhead, I did not hear or feel them, but they produced results all the same: arrows, launched from the war galley’s contingent of archers, and into the teeth of the foes. None of the arrows did any visible injury, but several ricocheted wildly off the foes’ breastplates. I stood back to my full height, and went at them. We swashed swords for three strokes and counter strokes.

Then the enemy with the sword made his mistake. The ship needed to leave, and my being on the gangplank was delaying it. My foremost enemy made a bad cover, and I put the tip of my sword into the gap between the tassets of his breastplate and his left cuisse, into his thigh. He stepped backwards to try and give himself a heartbeat to breathe.

And in that heartbeat I made my play. I drove forward, shoulder lowered, and knocked the three of us into the water below the gangplank. We all sank, cool sea water sliding into the gaps in my armor, and—

Can you picture it? Three men in plate harness, sinking to the floor of the river, grappling and still trying to kill each other even as our chests strained and our brains screamed for air? I thought I’d die down there, and I was determined to send them to hell ahead of me.

I struggled against the man-at-arms with the sword, breastplate to breastplate, swords locked, and knew I had perhaps ten heartbeats to kill him before his fellow came around my side and killed me.

We reached the river floor, and the gods were with me. He landed badly, unevenly on a rock, and I slid my swordpoint fast as an adder under his aventail and into his throat. Blood stained the water, and I turned my head fast, searching for the other man. Something slammed into my helm, and I went to a knee, dazed.

It also burst the air from my lungs, and I knew I would die. Water rushed to fill the space in my lungs, and the thing I remembered most about it is that it tasted disgusting. I was going to die drowning in filth.

I tried to power myself back to my feet, but the water in my lungs and the blow to my head conspired against me. I managed to twist around, wrap an arm around my last foe’s legs, and tripped him. My world darkened, and I feared the hell that awaited me.

But I’d died well, hadn’t I? Defending my lady, sending my enemies to the Stranger ahead of me. And that was all that could be asked of a knight.


End file.
